L'inquinamento da atrazina delle acque sotterranee. Un confronto tra metodi alternativi per la stima monetaria del danno ambientale

Groundwater is the main clean drinking water resource in Italy. Many groundwater contamination events have caused health damage. These events have rarely been evaluated. We used Contingent Valuation and Averting Costs methods in order to put a monetary value on the atrazine contamination of groundwater. Our survey was conducted in a municipality in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region in North East Italy. We found that Averting Costs underestimate contamination damage with respect to the contingent valuation, but the difference in not statistically significant. The results highlight the opportunity of further researches in this field in order to verify if the approaches of private appraisal, although not theoretically correct, could be a good proxy of the consumer surplus.